Virginia's Democratic-controlled House of Delegates voted 56, 34 on Monday to delay a ban on carrying modern semiautomatic firearms in public, just days after a judge blocked enforcement of the prohibition and a second court issued a statewide injunction against the broader assault weapons law signed by Gov. Abigail Spanberger.
The retreat came fast. Spanberger signed SB 749 on May 14, and pro-Second Amendment organizations filed lawsuits almost immediately. Six weeks later, the legislature was already walking back a central provision of the law it had passed, pushing the carry ban's effective date to July 1, 2027, a full year's delay tucked into budget amendments during a special session.
The sequence tells its own story: sign the ban, lose in court, then quietly shelve the part you can no longer defend. Gun Owners of America, one of the groups behind the legal challenge, put it bluntly on X: "They've already lost the fight and they know it."
On Friday, a Lancaster County judge issued a preliminary injunction blocking the ban on modern semiautomatic firearms through December 31. That order came in a case brought by GOA, the Gun Foundation, and the Virginia Citizens Defense League.
Then on Sunday, Washington County Circuit Judge Jeffrey Campbell issued a statewide injunction in Santolla v. Katz, prohibiting enforcement of the assault weapons ban entirely. The NRA, which backed that case, posted on X that Judge Campbell had "handed a major win for the Second Amendment."
Two courts. Two injunctions. Both arrived before the law's July 1 effective date. And by Monday afternoon, the House had voted to pull the carry provision off the table for a year.
VCDL President Philip Van Cleave made a distinction worth noting. The legislature delayed the carry ban, not the purchase ban.
"It is delaying the prohibition on CARRYING an 'assault firearm' in public for a year. You still won't be able to buy them."
That means Virginians with a concealed handgun permit can continue to carry firearms in public under the existing statute, Virginia Code 18.2-287.4, through at least July 1, 2027. But the ban on buying, selling, transferring, or manufacturing so-called assault firearms, along with a 15-round magazine capacity limit, remains on track to take effect July 1 absent further court action.
The statewide injunction from Judge Campbell could change that calculus. But the legislature's vote addressed only the carry provision, leaving the rest of SB 749 in place for now.
Meanwhile, Virginia gun buyers have been racing to purchase firearms before the ban takes hold, and the state's background check system is buckling under the load.
Virginia State Police Public Relations Director Robin Lawson told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the VSP Firearms Transaction Center had completed more than 100,000 transactions in June alone, averaging over 5,000 per day. Fox News reported that Virginia background checks reached 75,376 in May, more than double the 37,167 recorded in May 2025. Through the end of May, the state had already processed 347,167 checks, putting it on pace to far exceed the 521,283 conducted in all of last year.
The numbers reflect a familiar pattern: announce a ban, and law-abiding citizens rush to exercise their rights before the deadline. Gun shop owners told Fox News they were selling out of inventory.
Van Cleave said he did not attribute the delays to malice by state police. He pointed instead to sheer volume and a staffing problem that couldn't be solved in weeks.
"One person, one dealer that talked to the state police was told, well, the other problem that they had was this is a temporary spike, so to train more people to help during this time takes months and so they didn't feel like they could make that huge investment just for a few weeks."
Not everyone was as charitable. FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson visited a Virginia gun dealer over the weekend and posted on X that state police were "delaying background checks en masse." Ferguson tagged both the Virginia State Police and Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon, calling the delays "one of the most flagrant violations of our rights that I've seen."
Ferguson did not respond to multiple requests for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation. His post raised questions about whether federal officials might scrutinize the delays, though no specific federal action has been announced.
AP News reported that Virginia became the 12th jurisdiction, joining 11 states and Washington, D.C., to ban the sale and manufacture of certain semiautomatic firearms when Spanberger signed SB 749. The law prompted immediate legal challenges from the NRA, the Second Amendment Foundation, and the U.S. Department of Justice, which vowed to sue to block enforcement.
Adam Kraut of the Second Amendment Foundation told AP that "the firearms and magazines banned in this law aren't bizarre and unusual outliers, they're among the most commonly owned guns and magazines in the country." Spanberger, for her part, defended the law by saying that "firearms designed to inflict maximum casualties do not belong on our streets."
The legal landscape is now layered: a Lancaster County injunction blocking the ban through year's end, a statewide injunction from Washington County prohibiting enforcement altogether, a legislative delay of the carry provision, and the purchase ban still set to take effect, all while federal lawsuits remain pending.
Virginia's experience follows a well-worn script. Democratic legislators pass sweeping gun restrictions. Courts intervene. The state retreats on at least part of the law. And ordinary gun owners, the people who follow the rules, fill out the paperwork, and wait for the background check, are left scrambling to exercise a constitutional right before the government can take it away.
Trey Boyd, co-owner of a Virginia gun shop called Tactical Operations Vault, told Fox News what the ban means for his business and his customers: "Firearms that have a magazine capacity of more than 15 rounds, we won't be able to have anymore, which is a majority of your weapons nowadays. So it's going to affect us big-time."
The 56, 34 vote to delay the carry ban was not a change of heart. It was damage control. Spanberger herself included the delay in her budget amendments, an acknowledgment, however tacit, that the law she signed six weeks earlier could not survive the courts in its original form.
Several questions remain unanswered. Did the state Senate also vote on the delay, or only the House? What specific steps, if any, will AAG Dhillon or the Justice Department take regarding the background check bottleneck? And how will the competing injunctions interact with the purchase ban's July 1 effective date?
What is clear is the timeline. May 14: sign the ban. Late June: lose in court, twice. June 29: vote to shelve part of the law. That is not the arc of a policy built on solid constitutional ground.
When your own legislature votes to delay a law before it even takes effect, the courts aren't the only ones telling you it was a mistake.
